Old. Conservative. Christian. In love with my wife, our boys, Texas, America, Western Civilization, and Jesus. Sorry about the decline of newspapers.

July 24, 2017

JULY 24, 2017 / Victor Davis Hanson on the Great Decline

AMERICA IS SUFFERING a "revolutionary divide," says Mr. Hanson, and progressives are winning.

The consequences of globalization, the growth of the deep state, changing demographics, open borders, the rise of geographic apartheid between blue and red states, and the institutionalism of a permanent coastal political and culture elite -- and the reaction to all that -- are tearing our country apart.

The power of entrenched government -- the Deep State -- is now dedicated to "a rough equality of result, at the expense of personal liberty and free will.

It does not matter that the ossified European social model does not work and leads to collective decline in the standard of living. The world knows from seeing the implosion of Venezuela and Cuba, or the gradual decline of the EU and the wreckage of its Mediterranean members, or the plight of blue states such as Illinois and California. Instead, it is the near-r eligious idea of egalitarianism that counts; on the global stage, it has all but won the war against liberty. We are all creatures of the Animal Farm barnyard now.

. . . .

The conservative effort to roll back the entitlement, bureaucratic, and redistributionist state has so far mostly failed. [That we] are on target to run up a $700 billion annual deficit, on top of a $20 trillion national debt goes largely unnoticed. . . . Ronal Reagan's idea of cutting taxes to "starve the beast" of federal spending has been superseded by "gorge the beast" to ensure that taxes rise on the upper classes. To the degree that there is a residual war over entitlements, it is not over cutting back such unsustainable programs, but instead about modestly pruning the level of annual increases.

The second front, says Mr. Hanson, is identity politics -- "a veritable civil war over race, ethnicity, gender, and identity.

Massive immigration, the rise of opportunistic identity politics, and a new tribalism have replaced the old melting pot of assimilation, integration, and intermarriage with salad-bowl separation. The only obstacle to the tribal state is that there may soon be too many victims with too many claims on too few oppressors.

There are too many incentives -- from political spoils and university admissions, to government employment and popular cultural acceptance -- to identify with one's tribe rather than simply as an American.

The problem with such tribal fissuring are threefold. One, the rhetorical disdain for traditional majority culture and values operates in a landscape in which the critic adopts the tropes and lifestyle of all that he demonizes. . . .

Second, if red-state, traditional America is constantly assaulted with various charges of -isms and -ologies, why would any foreigner wish to enter the United States, or upon entering live in such wretched places as red-state Arizona, Texas, Florida, or Utah? . . .

Third, when tribalism supersedes the individual, then all criteria of merit, character, and ethics recede into identity: Race, gender, and ethnicity replace merit and we begin to have black NASA engineers, white nuclear-plant operators, or brown jet pilots rather than missiles, power, and flights that are overseen and operated by the most skilled among us. . . .

Finally, there is a growing rejection of the founding principles of the United States, its traditional Christian-based values, and the old idea of American exceptionalism. Federalism and the idea of a republic, after all, do not necessarily lead to radical egalitarianism or a society of absolute equals. Yet the modern progressive mind is wedded to two principles: that 51 percent of the population on any given moment should have the final say on governance only if it reflects the correct progressive principles; and if the population is "fooled" and votes incorrectly, then an elite in government, the courts and the media will intervene to set in place what the hoi polloi should have done to properly advance the correct agenda.

Progressives as winning this conflict, says Mr. Hanson.

It has an insidious appeal to human nature, offering contexts and arguments for dependency -- which is defined as the consequences of some sort of prior unethical exploitation (rather than chance, bad luck, or personal pathology, perhaps in addition to exploitation) and therefore deserving of proper recompense. Progressivism promises a transcendence over nature's limitations through superior education, proper training, and correct reasoning, as if poverty, illness, and inequality were not innate to human nature but results of selfishness and ignorance . . . .

Virtue signaling among elites who are critical of the very protocols that led to their own success serves as a psychological mechanism to alleviate guilt about privilege. . . . The combination of market capitalism and personal freedom can enervate a population, misleading people into thinking that their bounty is unending and natural, and giving them the latitude for cynicism, skepticism, and nihilism about the sources of their privilege.

Western philosophers have "grasped the Western paradox that the success of market capitalism and constitutional government might undermine virtues essential to their continuance."

In this latest arena of civil dissent, Donald Trump, the renegade liberal and most unlikely traditionalist, squares off against the elite that despises his very being not only for reasons of class and culture, but mostly for attempting to restore a traditional regime of citizenship, individualism, assimilation, territorial sovereignty, recognized borders, strong defense, deterrence abroad, and free-market capitalism.

In sum, behind the daily hysterias over collusions, recusals, obstructions, and nullifications, there is an ongoing, often vicious war over the very nature and future of Western culture in general America in particular.